What did you do to / for your E53 today??

[Effduration]

In all my BMW work, I have never encountered a bad coil pack...but I just did.

'05 X5 3.0 6 cyl -125k miles, I did a head gasket on it last September.

Yesterday on a cold start - 2nd of the day - It immediately started running rough and threw a CEL. I quickly stopped and read/reset codes. Codes pointed to a mis-fire in cylinder 2. I started again and immediately had the misfire again. Drove it home 3 miles on 5 cylinders.

This morning, I pulled coils and spark plugs, cleaned them, and switched 1&2 coils. The misfire moved to #1 cylinder..Bingo! I grabbed a similar coil out of my e39, installed it and misfire went away. I checked date codes on the orig X5 coils and they are from 2005, so likely original to the car. I have ordered replacements. I also did a quick, cold compression test on cylinder #2 to rule out a damaged valve or piston and it was okay at 150psi.

I probably have 3,500 miles on it since the head gasket, and it has been running great. But the mind can't help but fear the worse when I get a mis-fire.

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by Effduration

.... I also did a quick, cold compression test on cylinder #2 to rule out a damaged valve or piston and it was okay at 150psi...

Good info, thanks. I'm still on all my original coils at 192k miles on my 2001 3.0i.

When I did the compression test on mine before doing the head gasket job, I got up around 190 psi on all cylinders. Lowest was 185. Did you not have the gas pedal floored during the cranking?

[Effduration]

Originally Posted by oldskewel

Good info, thanks. I'm still on all my original coils at 192k miles on my 2001 3.0i.

When I did the compression test on mine before doing the head gasket job, I got up around 190 psi on all cylinders. Lowest was 185. Did you not have the gas pedal floored during the cranking?

I would swap out your coils, or at least carry a spare before a long trip.

As for the compression test, I did not pull the fuel pump fuse (I did pull all coils) and did not have throttle wide open. I was only testing cylinder 2 and was looking for a zero reading. I have seen burnt pistons and failed valves recently. my tester is also a little suspect.

To do it right, I would prefer to pull fuel relay fuse, do it warm, and do them all at once with throttle open. I would be more concerned with consistent readings, but would expect something closer to 190 across the board.

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by Effduration

I would swap out your coils, or at least carry a spare before a long trip.

As for the compression test, I did not pull the fuel pump fuse (I did pull all coils) and did not have throttle wide open. I was only testing cylinder 2 and was looking for a zero reading. I have seen burnt pistons and failed valves recently. my tester is also a little suspect.

To do it right, I would prefer to pull fuel relay fuse, do it warm, and do them all at once with throttle open. I would be more concerned with consistent readings, but would expect something closer to 190 across the board.

All sounds good.

[EODguy]

Winter is finished here and today was 30c. On the way home 30km my temperature showed 100c and since this is way outside the normal for my X I decided to spray my radiator clean of the winter dust....


I think I found the issue

I'm just glad the body fell out of the tank top

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[Serb404]

lmfao now that's epic ^

[andrewwynn]

I thought that was one of the plastic bags. Was that an actual shirt?


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[EODguy]

Yeah an actual freaking shirt.... Not saying that it's like garbage all over the place, but there's GARBAGE ALL OVER THE PLACE

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[Fifty150hs]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

Make an audio recording. Also use this app:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vibrat...o/id1089589547

It will isolate the exact frequency of the sound which can help determine the source. It reports the g-force the phone experiences and by moving the phone around to different places you can pinpoint the source.

Last year somebody traced a similar sound to the thrust bushing bolt bring loose and another traced it to the bearing at the top of the strut tower.

I think I may have found it. I'm still testing, but I think it is the power steering pump. When its not in gear the idle is high enough that I don't get the noise. In gear I get it. I recently notice while sitting at a light when I turned my wheel the noise increased. When I centered the wheel the noise decreased, but didn't go away. I'm going to play with it some more, but I think that's it. At $200 for a rebuilt replacement I don't want to just throw a part at it.

[andrewwynn]

Wife's ps pump gets noisy when it's cold out and also seems to have developed a leak so I get to root out that problem soon.

Is your fluid low that will definitely increase the noise.